The author of this book, Ricardo Cortes, was on O'Reilly last night. Quite an interesting concept, and I like it--actually bringing some well-rationed sense to the pot debate.

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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0509,p ... 592,6.html

It's Just a Book
How a 'pro-marijuana' children's story found its way to Congress
by Jamie Pietras
February 28th, 2005 5:59 PM

Not even the foggiest-headed stoner would argue they want children to smoke pot. (Especially if it means children digging into one's stash.) The challenge is in dissuading kids from doing so without resorting to potentially counterproductive myths and hyperbole.

Enter Ricardo Cortes.

Last month, Cortes published his children's book, It’s Just a Plant, 48 cannabis-laden pages that he hoped would be taken as a welcome dose of "reality-based education." The former high school D.A.R.E. officer and Brooklyn-based T-shirt and skateboard designer says the book is intended for "six- to 12-year-olds." It still encourages kids to say "No," but stops short of condemning responsible adult use.

The story begins when eight-year-old "Jackie" walks into her parents bedroom, a den of Peter Max-style, Day-Glo decorum, and catches her parents smoking a joint. It ends--after an odyssey involving a gentle pot farmer, progressive-thinking doctor, and a primer on marijuana prohibition history from an officer making a bust--with Jackie proclaiming she's going to grow up and vote, "so I can make all the laws fair."

Cortes began writing the book two years ago. Knowing he was taking entirely different approach from the usual scare tactics found in drug education, he was certain major publishers wouldn't touch it. He shopped the book around to a few independent presses before deciding to publish an initial run of 3,000 copies himself. Orders have been processed primarily through the website of his company, Magic Propaganda Mill. As a single-title publisher, he decided not to approach the major retailer Barnes and Noble, which would have required him to shoulder distribution costs.

Cost turned out to be the least of his problems. Gentle librarians and distinguished legislators alike have snubbed It’s Just a Plant. Small Canadian retail conglomerate McNally Robinson told Cortes his book wouldn't fit the store's demographic. The Brooklyn Public Library requested a copy but then declined to carry the book, and two libraries in other states have yet to respond.

The book can be found on some shelves. Indie sellers in San Francisco, Chicago, Austin, Baltimore, and New York are carryng the title, and one Borders in North Carolina has decided to stock it.

Reviews have been expectedly mixed. The most pointed came, unsurprisingly, from an elected official out to politicize the book. During a February 16 House Drug Policy Subcommittee hearing on "harm reduction" approaches to intravenous drug use, the committee's chairman, Indiana Representative Mark Souder, held a copy of the book in front of him and denounced it as a "pro-marijuana children's book." The representative then read excerpts into the Congressional Record. Cortes says he has already e-mailed a rebuttal to Souder's office, in the hopes will also be included in the Congressional Record. Souder's office hadn't yet seen it when contacted by the Voice.

Why would Souder go out of his way to publicize a self-published title of relatively little influence during a hearing unrelated to marijuana or educational policy? Two words: George Soros. The Hungarian-born investor is the chief financier of the drug reform movement and its most prominent advocacy group, the Drug Policy Alliance. The alliance is a key player in the world of drug reform--the go-to place for activists, journalists, and politicians interested in passing medical marijuana measures, decriminalizing marijuana, or starting needle exchange or methadone-maintenance programs. The DPA is the ideological thorn in the side of Souder and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the agency on behalf of which Souder introduces drug-related legislation to Congress.

Souder repeatedly attacked Soros and the DPA for its support of Cortes's book, which the DPA currently sells in the "drug education" section of its online library. DPA Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann provided Cortes with a promotional blurb, while Marsha Rosenbaum, the director of the DPA's San Francisco office, wrote the book's epilogue.

Rosenbaum told the Voice she knew her epilogue was "somewhat of a risky proposition" but she never anticipated the extent of the negative backlash. "It confirms all of my worst fears that the government, in the human form of Souder, would hold up this book and claim with a straight face that it advocates marijuana use for kids." Souder, who is currently out of the country, couldn't be reached for comment.

The debate over American marijuana-control policy has always been framed around the minds of the young. From the campy anti-pot educational films of the 1950s to the in-school visits from police officers affiliated with the 22-year-old D.A.R.E. program, federal officials have consistently funded or endorsed persuasive approaches to education that critics say put a premium on scare tactics at the expense of scientific objectivity. In the 1930s and 1940s, pot was said to lead to blood-splattering violence and insanity, a claim perpetuated, in part, by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Treasury Department agency that was the forerunner to today's Drug Enforcement Administration. This gave way to the slightly less sensational assertion that marijuana leads to the use of harder drugs like cocaine or heroin, a charge still in vogue among marijuana prohibitionists today, despite compelling evidence to the contrary (the federally funded 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine found no causative connection between the use of marijuana and the use of harder drugs).

But can a six-year-old differentiate how something could be against the law yet morally justifiable? "I don't think there's a magic age where it becomes OK to start talking about these things," Cortes says. "I think it's very similar to sex. A five-year-old is ready to talk about sex in some way. You don't need to break down the protein content of sperm to a five-year-old." (He and Rosenbaum are careful to say that they don't intend for kids to read the book on their own, but with an adult.)

Just a week after Souder's performance, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America announced the results of a new survey on parental attitudes. Most parents valued talking to their kids about drugs, the survey said, yet only one in three teens claimed to have learned a lot about drug risks at home. In fact, the number of parents who never talked to their kids about drugs doubled from 6 percent in 1998 to 12 percent in 2004. It's an ironic dynamic, since parents today are more likely to have used drugs than parents in previous generations.

As for Cortes, he may find the biggest market for his book isn't his intended audience. Cortes has already agreed to ship about half of his original run of books to Urban Outfitters, a national retail chain where consumers are more likely to see the book as ironic satire. That's cool, Cortes says. The point the book makes-pointing out the absurdity of marijuana laws-is one that is equally relevant to grown-ups. "Sometimes you have to talk to adults like they are children."

I don't engulge, but I do continue to fail to see how pot is so "bad" when caffiene is so widespread. I think the widespread use of caffiene, along with alcohol abuse, are both much worse than any amount of pot use. Hell, with RedBull and other drinks so easily accepted, they might as well put "coca" back into Coca-Cola.

c-

Given the choice, I would rather be in a room full of stoned people than a room full of drunk people.

Alcohol is dangerous and has a tendencey to make people aggressive and violent. Marijuana tends to make people relax and not care...

But pot is the "gateway drug"

Well I've had 2 friends that committed suicide while high, so.....

And I talked a drunk person out of suicide while I was high.

I'm sorry about your friends, but it wasn't the pot that did it.

--PunkDavid

I agree...with sympathy, your friends probably were "self medicating" for another problem...depression, bipolar, agoraphobia...

I had a bf who was "self medicating" with alcohol for agoraphobia...I tried to get him help, I even tried to get him to switch to pot...he also tried (& failed) to commit suicide...

He was drunk when he tried (& failed) the other 2 times, too...

He is now a herion addict (may or may not be alive). His "gateway" if there truly is any, was alcohol. He hated pot.

You are correct. It wasn't the pot that made them do what they did. But I'm not the one who is making generalities and saying that "Alcohol is dangerous and has a tendencey to make people aggressive and violent. Marijuana tends to make people relax and not care...'.

Is there something wrong with my "generality"?

I use words like "tendency" because I know that every person has a different reaction to pot or alcohol (or any and everything else for that matter).

But it could've played a major factor

Even so, that's no justification for it being illegal.

I've tried pot a few times, and enjoyed it, but it's nothing I'd touch on a regular basis. I'm just not interested in the potential health effects. For what it's worth, though, I so rarely intake caffeine (or alcohol, anymore) that the other day I had a Diet Coke and it was like that time I accidentally took my brother's ritalin.

Have you ever met someone who doesn't smoke pot because the one or two times that they did, they got really sick and threw up? Well, as anyone who smokes pot knows, pot alone does not make you throw up. In fact it generally settles an upset stomach about as well as any drug there is.

Of course, the people who threw up after smoking pot were quite drunk when they did so. They would never have smoked if they weren't, they're that kind of people. So they smoke pot, which made them slightly disoriented and much more immediately aware of how drunk they were and how the alcohol was already making the room spin, and this combination made them throw up, a result that may or may not have happened even without the pot that evening.

It's exactly the same thing. If you're walking on the edge of a cliff, don't do anything that might make you feel dizzy. However, if you're standing in the middle of your backyard, feel free to spin around until you fall on your face. You'll be fine in about a minute.

--PunkDavid

To my comment on why they don't just add the "coca" back into Cola....

I'd rather be in a room of relax people than aggressive, violent drunks as well.

As if adding Red Bull to Vodka will make a room more cordial. Not!

I think I mentioned in it the "partners for a drug free america thread", they should just make it by prescription only or make a non-THC version available in small quantities over the counter, and make revenue from it liek they do everything else under the sun. It would be alot less intrusive than all the caffiene etc. added to stuff.

It just seems like a pet - war, the "war" against pot. I'm certainly not defending anyone who abuses any substance, but it seems the proverbial "they" put alot of time and energy into the wrong things.

Seems to me anyway.

c-

Well I was at a wedding reception on Saturday and everyone was smashed on beer and wine and there was not one single person who was aggressive or violent. In fact it was quite the opposite. But if people want to keep generalizing people, well then go for it.

Obviously mileage varies, no need to be flippant.

c-

However, you have no idea how all those drunk people acted when they left the reception...

Public drunk and private drunk can be very different...but then I am generalizing again, aren't I?

And I truly am sorry that your friends committed suicide, and I could see how you would blame the pot...but that is a generalization, too, is it not?

"Marijuana is a gateway drug" is a generalization as well, but that stood up as an anthem for the "war on drugs" for far too long.

I have no problem generalizing the drunk vs. stoner debate.

I made the switch from liquid to herbal mood enhancers for this very reason. Seems I couldn't control what was coming out of my mouth after a few Jack on the rocks. So other people took it upon themselves to try and do that. Oddly enough, I've not had a single social problem since I switched to the green.

I would like to see a year long study on a dance club and a "coffee house". I'd bet the farm that unless somebody stole someone else's stash, you'd never see an altercation at the "coffee house". I wish the same could be true at a nightclub.

In my peaceful little Canadian town, the worst acts of violence happen at around 2am in front of nightclubs. One of my friends was murdered a couple of years ago. I am positive that if alcohol wasn't involved, he'd still be alive.

My experience is, stoned people at concerts don't tend to get into fist fights the way drunk ones do. And I've been to well over 100 different shows, ranging from Peter Gabriel and John Entwhistle solo, to The Ramones and the Vandals, from Iggy Pop to The Bee Gees, and from Pearl Jam and U2 to Public Enemy and Cypress Hill to John Taylor to Keith Richards to Jane's Addiction to X. Huge range, many faces, many drugs of choice. Drunks can most seriously "suck", from spilling drinks all over you to fist fights to urinating in public; stoners tend to offer you some, and get snuggly. My experience anyway.

As an individual currently flirting with alcoholism, and one who is known to smoke a J or two on occasion, I feel particularly qualified to respond here. Alcohol, while not completely acceptable to the general public, is at the very least a drug which you can use in a social setting without too much hassle (assuming of course you can control yourself). I can walk two blocks from my home to the local Ale House (which I will in about 4 hours) and drink till my heart is content, I am however prohibited from lighting up a doob in said establishment. Personally I think this is absurd, any individual who has used both will tell you Pot is the better social lubricant, but I digress... I think the real question is had Phillip Morris been around during prohibition, and grown cannabis as opposed to tobacco, would corporations of tremendous influence like Anhieser Busch and Miller exist? Almost certainly not. I am not by any means advocating the use of hallucinagens or narcotics, I simply want people to be rational and observe the issue realistically. I can say, with a great deal of certainty that pot will likely be decriminalized by the end of this century in the United States.